Do you remember your first time using a roundabout? Chances are, it was not the first time of everyone else on the roundabout, too, which meant you had the luxury of learning the rules of the road by watching other folks make the loop with no problems. Unfortunately, if you’re a resident of this rural town in eastern Kentucky, you’re just shit out of of luck.
This excellent clip comes from r/IdiotsInCars, which is the subreddit that keeps on giving. User EVOSexyBeast shared the video, claiming it was from near their hometown in “rural, eastern Kentucky,” and it’s just… well, words don’t do it justice. I’ll just let you watch:
As you can imagine, the roundabout was built to help increase traffic flow at a busy intersection, local news station WYMT reported at the start of April. Allen Blair of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 9 told the station that the whole goal here is to reduce the number of dangerous crashes that frequently take place at this specific intersection. If everyone just keeps flowing through the roundabout, you don’t have to worry about some fool who doesn’t understand that you’re supposed to yield to the right and let everyone take turns.
Well, that was the plan, anyway. I don’t think this roundabout situation has exactly improved traffic flow or safety. It’ll probably slow these vehicles down, which was the goal of the Kentucky roundabout, but I can’t exactly imagine that seeing a truck careening the opposite way on a roundabout will do much for the whole “safety” thing.
In the video, you can see one driver pretty much kick off a pack of followers, and everything proceeds to fall apart. It looks like this is a case where drivers will need some extra signage and maybe a refresher course of driver’s training to figure out who to make this roundabout work for them.